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Dr. Barbara Grant

Partner, American River Ventures Fmr IBM

Inducted in 1996

Dr. Barbara Grant is a Partner in American River Ventures, a venture capital fund managing over $100M in investments in early stage technology companies. Prior to joining American River Barbara had spent the past three decades acquiring management, operational and technology development experience working in both start-up companies and major corporations.

Barbara was most recently CEO of Siros Technologies, a Silicon Valley start-up that developed innovative optical components and subsystems for the communications and data storage markets. While she was at Siros the company raised over $60 million in funding from top-tier venture capital and corporate investors.

Prior to joining Siros, Barbara was at IBM for twenty one years where she held several executive positions. Her last position was as a Vice President and General Manager in the Data Storage Division. Over the course of her career, Barbara has led teams who have developed and introduced more than fifty new IBM products. These products incorporated new technologies and were seen throughout IBM's product lines, including new lithographic materials for semiconductor manufacturing, technologies found in TFT LCD technology utilized in IBM's ThinkPad product line, numerous data processing printer and scanner products, high density magneto-resistive heads for hard disk drives, and technologies for the world's highest capacity tape drives and storage subsystems.

Dr. Grant is the author of of eight patents and numerous technical publications in a variety of technology sectors. In 1996, Barbara was recognized for her accomplishments in leadership and development of technology while at IBM in her election to the inaugural group of the WITI Women in Science and Technology Hall of Fame.

Barbara's current board roles include Agoura Technologies, Integrated Materials, Triformix Inc, and Xponent Photonics. She is a member of the Board of Visitors for the University of California at Davis, UCD's Research Advisory Board and also sits on the board of the Sacramento Area Region Technology Alliance (SARTA).

Barbara holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University.